Ultimarc Aimtrak Lightgun firmware 9.20

[xlegx]

Hello everyone, i've got a problem with one Ultimarc lightgun. The problem is about the recoil. It doesn't works, so i was supposing that the issue could be the firmware. On a red gun, i've a 9.20 firmware and works perfectly. On the black one i've a 9.19 and seems to be not detected. Both power supply works (i've tested them). At the beginning the black one was working but not good ( when the power was on, it starts to shoot almost 10 times as test). The question is.....where i can find the last 9.20 firmware?
thanks for your time!

[markc74]

I think you need to email Andy at ultimarc so he can send you the correct one depending on the version of the gun you have.

[xlegx]

Any advice about the unworking recoil? could it be the firmware or what?

[xlegx]

Can anyone help me please?

[Titchgamer]

Andy at Ultimarc will be able to offer you the best advice regarding FW

[xlegx]

i already sended an e-mail to him. Seems not to be a firmware problem

[Titchgamer]

So what exactly is the problem?

[xlegx]

The recoil doens't work. At the beginning was like this (this is a video that i made)
Now the recoil seems dead. While it was shooting randomly as in the video, it starts to heat up on the solenoid zone. Now that doesn't work, is not heating.
I want to precise that the gun works to play, but not the recoil.

[Titchgamer]

Did the recoil solenoid activate as soon as you plugged it in?

[xlegx]

yes correct!

[Titchgamer]

Its probably burnt out the solenoid.

It could be caused by incorrect polarity?

[xlegx]

yeah maybe.... but it's strange... because both guns that i have and the 2 power supplies have been selled from the same shop. One perfectly works, the other one not (and this is the 2nd time that happen.
What could i do? Is there some way to test it?

[Titchgamer]

Not without opening them up.
You can test the polarity of the PSU’s with a multimeter.

How old are the AT’s?

[xlegx]

just bought on ebay (it supposed to be new). Is there some way to know when they were produced?

[Titchgamer]

just bought on ebay (it supposed to be new). Is there some way to know when they were produced?

I was more thinking about returning them than the age.

[xlegx]

i thought on that too.... but this is the second time that happen.....and it cost me 50€ each time.....

[Titchgamer]

I would look at the PSU polarity first then.

[hollywood6964]

I'll be honest, these guns are a very poor product. Both of mine had bad solenoids. One was fine for about a week with nearly no use, the other was bad out of the box- it'd only work every 3rd or 4th shot. Also, the are a beast to calibrate, especially if you put these on a tilted cabinet screen. It really doesn't work reliably. I sent both of mine back about a year ago- these are a hard pass for me, especially with the sky high price. I gave this product hours and hours of trying to remedy too. They just are what they are.

However, wiimotes with a nice gun adapter and a dolphinbar works really well for what it is, at a fraction. Although I understand they don't have the cool feel of the aimtraks, but that's where the coolness ends with them.

[AndyWarne]

I'll be honest, these guns are a very poor product.

However, wiimotes with a nice gun adapter and a dolphinbar works really well for what it is, at a fraction. Although I understand they don't have the cool feel of the aimtraks, but that's where the coolness ends with them.

They are not. I remember our emails well, and indeed it must have been frustrating to have had multiple soleniod issues. Very few products with a long production run never experience any batch production issues and this was the case here unfortunately.

The bad batch had machining marks on a recess in the end of the moving plunger and on a conical projection inside the solenoid which sometimes would interlock after action and cause hang-up. This issue did take a while to diagnose as it could not be reproduced by manually activating the solenoid or visual inspection.

Another recoil issue we had on some units was the cable being too tightly folded in packing causing internal breaks.

Both issues rectified on current production.

About calibration: One of the advantages over the Wiimmote solution is that the Aimtraks can be calibrated for line-of-sight aim.
Any calibration issue should take no more than a few minutes to diagnose. There is only one base cause of failure which is loss of sight of both ends of the LED bar. We supply a utility which indicates what the camera sees and easy to diagnose with this.

From support requests the most common causes are:

Operation too close
LED bar installed too far from the top of screen
LED bar installed upside-down
IR light reflections from a source in the room such as a halogen lamp, in the screen.

This is a sucessfull product and will continue to be so. The use of an IR source for reference is the best system for installation in an arcade environment as its not a big issue to do a one-off install of the small bar, which can be de-cased if necessary.
An IR source avoids using a visible light reference generated by the screen which is always visible to the eye and requires extensive processing to separate out the reference from everything else the camera can see.

I have confidence in the Aimtrak such that I will send a brand new one free of charge if you contact me again using the same email as before.

[Titchgamer]

I'll be honest, these guns are a very poor product.

However, wiimotes with a nice gun adapter and a dolphinbar works really well for what it is, at a fraction. Although I understand they don't have the cool feel of the aimtraks, but that's where the coolness ends with them.

They are not. I remember our emails well, and indeed it must have been frustrating to have had multiple soleniod issues. Very few products with a long production run never experience any batch production issues and this was the case here unfortunately.

The bad batch had machining marks on a recess in the end of the moving plunger and on a conical projection inside the solenoid which sometimes would interlock after action and cause hang-up. This issue did take a while to diagnose as it could not be reproduced by manually activating the solenoid or visual inspection.

Another recoil issue we had on some units was the cable being too tightly folded in packing causing internal breaks.

Both issues rectified on current production.

About calibration: One of the advantages over the Wiimmote solution is that the Aimtraks can be calibrated for line-of-sight aim.
Any calibration issue should take no more than a few minutes to diagnose. There is only one base cause of failure which is loss of sight of both ends of the LED bar. We supply a utility which indicates what the camera sees and easy to diagnose with this.

From support requests the most common causes are:

Operation too close
LED bar installed too far from the top of screen
LED bar installed upside-down
IR light reflections from a source in the room such as a halogen lamp, in the screen.

This is a sucessfull product and will continue to be so. The use of an IR source for reference is the best system for installation in an arcade environment as its not a big issue to do a one-off install of the small bar, which can be de-cased if necessary.
An IR source avoids using a visible light reference generated by the screen which is always visible to the eye and requires extensive processing to separate out the reference from everything else the camera can see.

I have confidence in the Aimtrak such that I will send a brand new one free of charge if you contact me again using the same email as before.

How long ago was these solenoid issues fixed Andy?

I was wondering if mine had this recoil fault with the dodgy solenoid you speak of as mine failed multiple times also.

[AndyWarne]

How long ago was these solenoid issues fixed Andy?

I was wondering if mine had this recoil fault with the dodgy solenoid you speak of as mine failed multiple times also.

The issue didnt arise at all until some time after launch of the recoil version. It appeared in a small number from late 2017 to early this year.

[Titchgamer]

How long ago was these solenoid issues fixed Andy?

I was wondering if mine had this recoil fault with the dodgy solenoid you speak of as mine failed multiple times also.

The issue didnt arise at all until some time after launch of the recoil version. It appeared in a small number from late 2017 to early this year.

Mine had this problem (still does) but mine must of been the first batch then as I got them in may 2016.

[AndyWarne]

If you drop me an email we can sort it.

andy@ultimarc.com

[Titchgamer]

If you drop me an email we can sort it.

andy@ultimarc.com

Will do Andy cheers